7 Things
by padfoot's prose
Summary: Astoria never thought Draco was humble or trustworthy or particularly smart, and yet something about him kept making her look back. So, as his old world crumbles, she is the one he needs to help pick up the pieces. Draco/Astoria


**This is for CalculusWasTough's _The Seventh Thing Competition_ on HPFC. I had to write a fic based off Miley Cyrus's song, 7 Things.**

**EDIT! A reviewer pointed out to me that Astoria is actually 2 years younger than Draco, whereas I've portrayed her as one year younger in this. Sorry!**

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><p><em>DracoAstoria_

_730 words_

_7 drabbles_

_7 things she hates about him_

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><p><span>You're vain<span>

I'd watched him get on the train when he was in first year. He'd been all sharp edges – pointed nose, mouth held in a thin straight line, eyes constantly narrowed.

But I hadn't found him intimidating. Instead, he seemed sort of... pitiful. I'd known he'd had the same upbringing as me, but he'd seemed almost proud of it.

Stupidly proud.

Proud of the dying race our parents foolishly expected us to preserve. Proud of the old-fashioned ideas. Proud of the old-fashioned world.

Even at the age of ten, I'd been able to see what he couldn't.

The future. Our future.

...

Your games

When I was in first year, he was in second. I remember him then. He was unbearable.

He showed off like it was his mission in life to constantly look better, seem better, put up a better facade than Potter. What he didn't realise back then – what he didn't realise for a long, long time afterwards – was that it didn't make him look good. It just made him look pathetic.

The pranks, the teasing, the bullying – it was all a game to him. He'd make one move and expect Potter to make the second. But Potter never did. He wasn't playing.

...

You're insecure

I picked him up on it once. Told him he was a baby, a wimp, a little boy meddling with things that were so much bigger than himself.

"You shouldn't be involved in this," I muttered as I passed him in the common room.

He stopped midway through his re-telling of the hippogriff's trial, turning to face me.

"What?" he demanded.

I shrugged.

"The way you described your injury, I'd think that it alone would've proved the creature was dangerous. Unless you were faking it all along and those tears were just because you're as spineless as a baby flobberworm."

...

You love me, you like her

When he was in fourth year, he started looking at me differently. As if suddenly I was more than a little girl with more brains and sense than he'd ever have.

It was flattering. Completely deranged, because I'd choose a troll with anger management problems before I'd so much as give him the time of day. But flattering nonetheless.

Then the Yule Ball arrived.

A Ravenclaw boy whose sister was coming second to me in Transfiguration asked me. I wanted to say yes. I didn't.

Instead, I stayed alone in my dormitory, hating Pansy Parkinson even more than ever before.

...

You make me laugh, you make me cry

The Inquisitorial Squad was a joke. The Prefect badge wasn't.

It made me look at him closely than before, wondering what Dumbledore saw that I'd missed.

He knew I admired one of them, but he never figured out which one it was, so he'd alternate.

One day he'd hold his head high and puff out his chest until it was all I could do to hold back a laugh. The next he'd torture and torment and abuse, then glance over to see if I was impressed.

Times like those made me cry and think that maybe Dumbledore had been mistaken.

...

Your friends (they're jerks)

My fifth year, his sixth, was scary. He'd disappear into his group of friends – idiots who gravitated around him like he was some kind of sun. Like the light shone out of him. Like they wanted to be closer to whatever dark, destructive bargain he'd offered himself in. Like they wanted to be like him.

But I was so far gone by then, so far past pretending that I wasn't curious, that I didn't care, that it wasn't him I blamed. I blamed them.

Not Crabbe and Goyle and Parkinson and my sister. No, he had much worse 'friends' now.

...

You make me love you

I hated missing him. I hated being scared for him, worrying about him, caring about him.

I wasn't there for the final battle. Neither was he. Both of us left – were forcibly removed – because of our families, because of a past that we couldn't control. When that happened, I realised that the future I'd foreseen was here.

The old-fashioned world was dead.

We weren't.

"Who am I?" he begged me, all the sharp edge dissolving as his eyes begged for answers.

I sat beside him in the gutter, picking up his hand and grasping it in mine.

"You're my Draco."

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><p><strong>So I've never written this couple before. I've also never written a fic based off a Miley Cyrus song before. You're welcome to comment on either of those in your review!<strong>


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